RTTW spoilers, the Silken tongue

Adam Stephanides · 15 Feb 2001, 10:44 · from whorl-v0012.mbox · original

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (whorl) RTTW spoilers, the Silken tongue
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:44:14 +0000
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on 2/15/01 5:50 AM, Michael Andre-Driussi at mantis at sirius.com wrote:

> But you GUYS!  HEY!  Your sense of SILK is from the BOOK written by HORN
> and NETTLE!  Crikies!  There was even a little cliffhanger between volumes
> 1 and 2 of TBOTLS where it was established that lil' Horn could mimic
> Silk--and that was years before he invested the energy of writing the boo=
k.
>=20
> You don't know Silk (none of us do!), you know litSilk.
>=20
> Anybody, take some character you know something about, and now act like
> that character.  Like any trekkie can do "Kirk," or "Spock."  People can =
do
> "Kramer" or "Elaine" or "Numan."  Or "Frank N. Furter" or "Magenta."  Or
> "Elvis."
>=20
> Got that part, okay: now on to the next part.
>=20
> Imagine that the biggest Elvis fan in the world suddenly found himself
> transported into the nearly dead body ("whoa, that was a close one!") of
> Elvis himself.  Do you think he couldn't fake being Elvis?  Crank it up a
> notch: make that fan the guy who wrote all of Elvis's songs, and taught h=
im
> how to move and sing--the guy who created the Elvis that everybody else s=
aw
> and heard.

No doubt Horn could impersonate Silk's manner of speaking.  But why would he
want to do so consistently?  He doesn't know, or he denies, he's in Silk's
body.  He is aware that everybody thinks he's Silk, and wants to convince
them he's not.  It makes no sense that he would then go around acting like
Silk.  In any case, it's not just his manner of speaking, it's his
character.  The Horn of the journey to Pajarocu is not inclined to dispense
wisdom at the drop of a hat, as the "Horn" on the Whorl is.

As for the distinction between Silk and litSilk, it's true we don't know the
"real Silk," only litSilk.  But we also know the litHorn of the trip to
Pajarocu.  And the "Horn" of the Whorl resembles litSilk much more closely
than litHorn.

(I'll be writing a longer post replying to your earlier questions, but I
wanted to answer this right away.)

--Adam

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